Jogging a trail near mountains,

he stopped in his tracks

at the sight, so near a county road,

of bear tracks and a few

paces farther along, scat – small

paw prints and late

summer apple laced scat: a cub.

Momma must be near.

He looked around and, as a man passed

by, the excited jogger

implored the hiker saying, “Look, look

here. Bear prints and apple

scat.” The passerby, no earphones

apparent, ignored

the plea, the desire to share

the discovery (even

a deaf man would have seen the

excitement), furtively

glanced down, hurriedly looked up

and hiked on. The

jogger, forgetting the cub and she

bear, wondered why

the man had been hiking at all. By

then the bears were gone.